hey guys. welcome back.
I'm going to put a trigger warning up here. This chapter contains graphic (but not explicit) details of kidnapping and sexual assault (NOT rape). like i said it's detailed, but there's no rape here or anything like that. that said, if you're someone who has been through something like this or is sensitive to it, please skip this chapter. if you think you can handle it, read on. if you need to stop, please tell me in a PM so that i can tell you what you've missed. THIS STORY AND THIS CHAPTER ARE NOT WRITTEN WITH THE PURPOSE OF CONDONING OR ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE. don't sue me. okay, that's all. continue, if you dare. ;)
~temporary insanity
"We're stopping... I have to go," she whispers in a panic as the car suddenly pulls to the side and then goes silent. She hangs up with a final whispered goodbye and shoves the phone in her bra as the trunk opens.
"We're in business," Christina says cheerfully. "I've got your court hearing scheduled for tomorrow."
Four's eyes widen. "W-what?"
"Your hearing to exponge your records and throw out your conviction. It's tomorrow. Let me just tell you that the judge I presented my motion to was not pleased to hear that you were in prison so long for something you didn't do. The DA is being cooperative. Congratulations. You're going to be a free man."
"Just like that, huh?" Four mumbles thoughtfully. "What do I have to do?"
"Just stand there when they say, and the judge will give you some useless apology, which you'll accept as graciously as possible, and then you'll be given the option for compensation—in other words, we'll be allowed to sue the shit out of the state, if that's what you want, and then we'll come back and get your things, and then you'll be free to leave jail for good."
"Alright, I guess."
"Sweet. so... you know, pack your shit. I'll have something for you to wear tomorrow. Will and Fer will be there, and Tris too."
"Will she really be there?"
"Of course. Just cause you two aren't together anymore doesn't mean she's not interested in your well being. It's all she talks about. She keeps saying this thing... she keeps saying 'he's not scum'... like some sort of mantra. Like we don't already know that you're the most important thing to her. Each time you come up in the investigation... each time you're mentioned in relationship to some Dauntless thing, she glares at everyone. I don't even think she realizes she does that, but she does. She's like... your own guard dog for your reputation, or something."
"She doesn't want to love me anymore," he mumbles, disbelieving.
"But that doesn't mean she doesn't. Give her some time. She's stubborn as fuck, but she knows what the right thing to do for herself is. She'll come around. Let's focus on getting you out of here for now, okay?"
Eric yanks her out of the car by her hair. She grits her teeth to keep from crying out, but she glares at him, purposefully stomping on his foot as she stumbles onto the curb. He retaliates with a resounding smack that sends her crashing to the ground, lights flashing in her vision. She climbs to her feet quickly, moving away from him so he doesn't pull her up by her hair again.
He wrenches her by the arm toward a door to what looks like an apartment building. The stairs are steep and narrow, and poorly lit. She stumbles twice on the way up the stairs, her ears still ringing and her vision still swimming. He guides her forcefully to the door directly in front of the stairs on the third floor, producing a key he didn't have in his hand before. It's not attached to keychains or other keys.
A spare key.
He opens the door and pulls her past the dimly lit living room, with dingy couches that have holes in them, to a chair in what seems like a dining room. There are no other chairs, however. There is only a desk and a small laboratory set up. She sits on her hands on the chair, purposefully staring at her lap, and waits for him to speak. However, all she registers is the click of the door closing and a lock sliding home.
She looks up, curious. Eric didn't bother to tie her down or anything... why? She stands, moving toward the door they walked through. There is no door knob, only a lock. The key unlocks both the inside and the outside. She knows trying to open the door would be useless, so she moves back into the space she was put in and looks around. There should be a fire exit around here...
She pushes open the door to one room to find two beds with thin mattresses, a dresser, and a closet. The closet is filled with women's clothes—business suits and lab coats. At the bottom on a rack are various pairs of shoes.
She checks the windows but there are locked, and all there is between her and the ground is three stories of emptiness. On an impulse, she pulls her phone out and opens the voice memo application, recording her thoughts out loud. "I'm in one of the bedrooms... it looks like they've been staying here a while. There's clothes in the closet, her clothes. Suits and stuff, shoes and lab coats. His clothes are in the dresser between the two beds. I wanted to see if I could get out of here through the window, but I can't."
She moves out of the room and into the kitchen area. There is a stove and a refrigerator, but both are old and crusted with lack of use. "The refrigerator holds a case of beer and left over take out, and nothing else. The stove hasn't been used since like... nineteen sixty-three or something, and everything is crusty and gross. I think if they plan to torture me to death, they might make me eat their takeout." She shudders at the gastric distress that could be growing in there and moves on to the bathroom.
The bathroom is fairly clean, and she peruses it. "His razor, two toothbrushes. Yeah. They've clearly been holed up in this crappy apartment for some time. Their toothpaste is almost gone. There's no way to get out of here either, the window is boarded up. I guess that's where the fire escape is..." she lets out a frustrated growl. "There's no way out. Fuck!"
She shoves the phone in her pocket and walks out of the bathroom slamming headlong into a woman with chin length brown hair and watery blue-gray eyes. Her lips are painted red and there's a small mole right outside her upper lip.
Tris freezes with fear, but the woman simply scowls at her and points back into the area she was originally seated in. "Sit down," she says flatly.
Tris backs into the room and sits down, as far away from the woman as she can. "Who are you?" she asks.
"Like you don't know," the woman snorts. "Don't waste my time with stupid questions."
"I'm the one sitting here with no way out after your little lackey dragged me out of my apartment and into his trunk! I have stuff to do too, you know. You're the one wasting my time." Tris crosses her arms, her fear momentarily forgotten. "Your. Name."
"You're a feisty little thing, aren't you?"
"You're a cold-hearted little bitch, aren't you?" Tris spits back, raising an eyebrow.
"Miss Prior... your insults are childish and unnecessary."
"Fuck you," she snaps.
"I don't know what that man sees in you other than someone to put in her place now and again," the blonde woman says tiredly.
"You're going to kill me anyway, what's it to you?"
The woman sighs, the kind of sigh that a parent heaves when their patience is being severely tested. "Fine. My name is Janine Matthews. You may call me Ms. Matthews."
"I'll call you whatever I want."
The woman finally jumps out of her chair, sending it back with a crash, and barrels around the desk. Her hands wrap around Tris's throat. "Listen, you stupid little brat and listen carefully," she hisses as the younger woman gasps for air. "You are, in fact, going to die here today. But if you keep up your ludicrous behavior, all you will do is expedite the process, and it will be more painful, more terrifying, and more torturous the more you RUN your MOUTH! Do I make myself clear?"
Tris nods and Janine releases her neck, leaving her to cough and gasp for breath as she storms out of the room.
She's barely recovered her breath when Eric stands in front of her, arms crossed, feet shoulder-width apart. Everything about him screams control and dominance, and she wants to take him down a peg. But she can't piss him off yet. She needs to get him to talk. So instead, she stares into his eyes, watery and lifeless like his mother's, and makes her face as cold and empty as his. "Well?" she asks flatly. "What are you waiting for?"
"You've got a smart mouth, do you know that?"
"Then I'm doing better than you," she says testily.
She doesn't register the sound, only the bright lights in her eyes and the world tilting as she tumbles off the chair. Her mouth tastes like rusted metal and salt, and when she coughs, blood drips from her lip. She slowly rights herself, pushing the hair that has managed to fall out of her ponytail out of her face. She wipes her face with her sleeve and pushes herself toward the wall for support. As she struggles to keep her head from spinning.
He smirks cruelly at her, watching her scramble dazedly away from him. She hears a metal clinking and realizes that he's biting his lip piercing as he considers his next move. He turns away for a moment, and she uses that moment to slip her phone out of her bra and hide it behind the blinds of the window she's next to.
She closes her eyes. She doesn't think she'll be able to manipulate him by making him just angry enough. She'll end up with more than just bruised cheeks that way. She has to stall until Will gets here with the police. He should be here soon.
Maybe there is a way. Maybe she should pretend that he is manipulating her. If there is anything she can see about him, it is that he likes being the smartest person in the room. He likes the control, he feeds on the fear. If she pretends to be afraid, maybe he will gloat. Her phone is still recording... if she can get him to gloat into a recorded confession, then Four can be free.
Four. She scoffs. It's a stupid name. Who calls himself by a number anyway? His name is Tobias. And she loves him. And she will make herself weak if it means that she can save him.
Pretend some vulnerability, she scolds herself. Pretend to panic. Do it now. She wipes her face again, and she doesn't have to fake the trembling in her hand. She stands and darts for the door, but he grabs her arm before she's halfway to the living room.
"Where are you going?" he asks snidely.
"Let go of me!" she screams, trying to make herself sound as desperate as she can. She kicks at him and drives at him with her open palm, knowing that her blows will be ineffective.
He yanks her into her seat, his grip painful. Her arm will bruise. His hand finds her throat and she knows that will bruise too, if he doesn't strangle her to death anyway. He stares at her, and she pinches herself hard so that her eyes will up with tears. She makes her cut off breaths louder, faster, shallower, watching him smirk with satisfaction as her vision starts to go black around the edges.
"You're pathetic," he says dismissively, letting her throat go.
She says nothing, focusing only on being able to breathe again.
"He's pathetic too, you know."
"Fuck you," she gasps. "He cared about you."
He snorts. "Bullshit. If he cared about me he wouldn't have tried to run me out of Dauntless."
"That's a lie," she whispers. "Is that what you tell yourself at night so you can sleep after putting your best friend in jail?"
"He's not my friend," Eric growls.
"He loved you like a brother. He never would have disrespected you or tried to get you out."
His hand snaps out, like lightning, grabbing her hair and pulling her head painfully back to look in her eyes. "Is that what he told you?" He asks quietly. "Did he tell you that the the other leaders were considering relegating me to his job? He was merely the gopher, the one that ran between my mother and Dauntless to get our supplies but they wanted him to outrank me. That filthy piece of street trash—because that's where we found him, on the damn street, wearing rags and eating shit out of dumpsters like a common drug addicted nobody."
"He wouldn't have accepted," she says. "He wouldn't have done that to you. He cared about you."
"Right, that's why he started hooking up with one of our bitches, right?"
"Ours, or yours?"
"Shut the fuck up. You know nothing."
"I know that you clearly didn't care as much about Lynn as you said you did, or else she wouldn't be dead."
"She was a traitor," he growls, his grip tightening on her hair. "I saw her talking to some undercover."
Tris reaches out, careful not to alert him or look away, and snatches the spare key from his pocket, slipping it in her own before he registers her movement. "You have no loyalty," she accuses in a pained whisper, never looking away from his face. He would be handsome if he weren't so cold, and she tells him so.
"Yeah?" he says, an evil smirk pulling at the holes in his lip. "Would you fuck a cold asshole like me? You've been doin' your boy toy in prison. Maybe it's time you moved up the chain a little." His other hand moves roughly up her side, past her waist, as his knee pushes its way between hers, forcing her legs apart.
She swallows, and the panic now is not forced. "Lynn wouldn't," she whispers. "You wanted her and she didn't want you back."
"She was a slut. She didn't have a say in who she fucked. Why'd she say no to me and not to that homeless piece of shit, hmm? Why'd she do that? Because he made her forget me. Just like he turned all of our friends against me. I hate him. And now I get to do to him what he did to me, and I'm going to have so much fun," he says, leaning closer to her face. "I'm going to fuck the shit out of you, like he did with my woman. And then I'm going to kill you, just like I killed her. I'm going to use my mother's serum to poison you. You're think you're scared now, little girl? Just you wait." His lips are at the corner of her mouth. When Four did that, his eyes were mischievous and lustful, and his arms were warm and strong and safe, and his hands were gentle. Now Eric's mouth on her face is repulsive, his eyes calculating and glinting with evil. There is nothing gentle about his hands in her hair or on her skin. There is nothing sexy or devious about the way his hand is pushing roughly past the hem of her shirt as he puts his mouth to hers, cutting off her whimper.
His tongue is harsh and demanding, and she has a moment of blind panic as his hand slips up over her bra. She squirms, but he drives his fist into her side, making her groan in pain. "Shut up," he growls at her. "Shut the fuck up and take it like the slut Four has turned you into." Then her mouth is being invaded again by his lips and tongue, and she does the only thing she can think of. She bites down on his tongue as hard as she can, and she can taste his blood immediately.
His fist connects with the side of her face as he screams, so hard that she's sure she blacked out for at least a second. Then his boot connects with her side, and she feels the excruciating crunch of her rib cracking. She curls into a ball to protect herself from the blows, tears of pain and fear causing her to sob.
He pulls her to her feet by her arm, already bruising from the last time he grabbed her. This time she stumbles, dazed and in pain from the kicks and punches, and she feels her arm separate from her socket. She screams into her teeth, not bothering to hide her cries anymore.
He shoves her on to the rotting, smelly couch nearest the entrance, pinning her wrists on either side of her with his knees.
She shakes her head desperately as his hand finds the button of her pants. He leans over her as she struggles, watching with cruel amusement.
She tries to breathe, to calm herself down, to think. What is the one thing Caleb always told her to do if someone bigger than her pinned her down and she couldn't free her hands?
"Knee 'em in the balls, sis."
"What?! But that's so..."
"If someone's robbing you or killing you or raping you, I promise you they don't give a shit if you're in pain or not. If you're pinned but you can free you legs, kick him between the legs and run for your life."
Caleb... always the voice of reason to her when she doesn't know what to do. She bides her time, letting him kiss her and controlling her reactions. Then he shifts, and she brings her knee up as hard as she can. He howls in pain, and she slams her forehead into the bridge of his nose as hard as she can. He doubles over, groaning, and she stumbles to her feet and runs for the door, fumbling with the key she stole from his pocket.
"You bitch!" He growls, using the couch to crawl to his feet.
The door finally opens and there are hundreds of footsteps in the stairwell, stomping, yelling. "Clear!" calls out one voice after another. She trips twice on the stairs, and there is a series of bangs.
They are loud, hurting her ears so much she covers them with her hands. Will is aiming a gun, that's where two of the bangs came from. The other must be from another entrance—and more gunshots. There is screaming, but she doesn't know who is doing that. All she knows is that Will is here, and she can stop running now.
She slumps against him, and he slides down the wall with her. "Stay with me, Tris," he says. His voice is urgent and panicked, but she doesn't know why. All she wants to do is sleep. She can sleep and then visit Four tomorrow.
"Keep your eyes open," he snaps. His hand is grasping her neck.
Why is he being so insistent? Was she shot too?
The second she asks herself the question there is searing pain in her ribs and her neck, and her back. She whimpers as the waves of pain crash over her, drowning her. She tries to breathe, but she can't. Panic blinds her for a moment, but Will's voice is authoritative and calm, like Caleb's was not too long ago. "Calm down," he says quietly. "Just stay with me, sweetheart, there's an ambulance coming, okay?"
But something is pulling at her consciousness, begging her to just let go. The pain will go away if she can just close her eyes.
But what about Tobias? The thought startles her and she jumps, the pain tearing at her insides and forcing a wet cough from her lungs. "Tob-bia—s..." she manages, but she can't speak anymore.
"He'll be okay."
"My ph-one," she wheezes. "He... I got..." she tries to focus on Will's face, on the green of his eyes, but it is all blurring too much. She lets her eyes slip closed... they are useless anyway.
"You got what, Tris? Answer me, okay? Stay with me."
"I... rec-co... cord—ed... he k-kill—h-her."
"You recorded a confession?" he asks, partly relieved but mostly incredulous.
She tries to nod, but he scolds her not to move. His hand presses harder into her neck, and she whimpers.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I know it hurts... I'm sorry. Just stay with me, okay? Don't you do this to him, don't you leave him now." his voice is pleading, and she forces her eyes open to look at his. His relief is evident. "There," he breathes. "That's it. Stay with me, okay? You're going to be okay."
"You... h-have t-t—tell To—bia-s... tell-ll h-him I..." She draws a shuddering breath, but her lungs are drowning. Her eyes fly open in alarm as she claws at her throat, and he helps her tilt forward so that she can cough. They both cringe at the blood that pours from her lips.
She just wants to sleep. That's all she wants to do, is just sleep. She mumbles the words, too tired to say them with proper diction. "Tell him I loved him."
"Tris..."
"Tell him," she interrupts as her eyes slip closed, "that I didn't want to leave him."
"Stay with me," Will snaps. "Tris! Tris..."
But sleep has overcome her, and she welcomes its oblivion. It eases the pain.
In the distance she hears voices, shouting long words in muffled tones.
Will's voice is there, and he is the most insistent of all. "Stay," he says, his voice demanding and tight with panic. "Dammit, girl! Breathe!"
The ambulance workers rush her inside, along with nurses and doctors already shouting about units of blood and operating rooms that need to be cleared, and all Will can do is stare.
Oh Jesus, he thinks, rolling up the bloody sleeves of his shirt, which was blue this morning before it was covered in red.
He pulls out his phone. "Fer," he mumbles.
"How is she?" he asks immediately.
"Not good," he mumbles. "Please tell me you found her phone."
"A CSI tech just found it. I'm playing back the recording. She's got them both on record, stating their names, and Eric played right into her ploy. Jesus, that girl is brilliant."
"Eric?"
"Dead," he says shortly. "The IA will be coming for your badge and gun, but there won't be much of an investigation. Everyone knows you shot him because he was firing on Tris. It's gonna be open and shut."
"Matthews?"
"Dead. Shot in the head after she stuck one of us with her damn fear serum shit. They're doing everything they can for him, but..."
"Fuck," he mutters. "Who was it?"
"It was Collins."
Will frowns. Collins has been a cop for ten years. He just started his family. Now he's going to die a presumably horrible death. "Shit, man."
"I know. He saw his partner shoot her, though."
"Good," Will says, slightly mollified. "I'm going to go keep eyes on Tris. Listen up—don't let Four get wind of this. Keep it out of the press too, okay?"
"Sure," Fernando says easily. "I'll make sure everyone knows."
"Thanks."
Six hours have passed. There have been surgeries and code blue alerts and Will paces in front of the door, frantic with worry. He frowns as he goes over the incident in her head, trying to think what he could have done to prevent this. All he sees in his mind is Tris, slumping in his arms, dazed and bleeding, her consciousness—her life—slipping away from her even though she fought hard to retain it.
Fuck.
She stared at him with glassy eyes, her one hand clutching his shirt, her other hand pressed tightly to her body, a string on her sleeve caught on the teeth of her—wait. The teeth of her fly? He thinks back in his mind and grits his teeth. Her fly was undone. Holy fuck... did he...?
"Nurse? Nurse! I need to know if they've done a rape kit on Beatrice Prior. Has anybody notified her family?"
"I can't tell you that."
"I'm the detective on her case," he snaps. "If you have the damn rape kit, I need to see the results. If nobody has notified her family, I need to do so. It's my job. Now do yours."
The nurse at the desk glowers at him with a few keystrokes, makes her way into the correct patient chart. "Miss Prior didn't have need for a rape kit. The external exam showed no signs of bruising or fluids on her legs or gentials, no torn or disheveled clothing—more than natural for her situation, anyway. However they did find blood evidence inside her mouth... the notes say it is likely she bit him at so."
He breathes a sigh of relief and retrieves his cell phone again.
"Hi baby," Christina says brightly, and he feels himself calm down further. As high energy as she is, she always makes him feel calm and ready.
"Hey babe," he says softly. "I love you."
"I love you too, what's wrong?"
"Um... well, the case is closed," he offers lamely. "Fer should have forwarded you a recorded confession from Eric about his and Janine's involvement in Lynn's murder. Both are dead."
"Dead? What happened?"
"Look, you can't tell Four, okay? Tris was kidnapped."
"Holy shit," she breathes.
"I um... in the kidnapping, Uriah..."
"Uriah what?" she says flatly.
"Eric killed him," he says.
There is silence on the other line.
"I... I'm sorry," he says softly. "I... fuck. I'm sorry."
"Is Tris okay?" she asks, but her voice is hollow, numb.
"She's in surgery. She's pretty banged up but he shot her. Three times."
"Jesus. Will, how could this have happened?!"
"I don't know, okay? I... I warned her as soon as I could, but it was too late."
"She should have had a police escort. So should have Uriah, for that matter."
"The higher ups didn't want to approve the hours."
"This is bullshit," she says, and he can hear the tears in her voice.
"I'm... I'm so sorry, baby."
"I know," she sniffs. "What hospital? I'm on my way."
"Come quick, baby. I need you to... tell Caleb, and... and his mother and father."
"Right," she mutters. "I should probably call my aunt too. Fuck," she whispers, and then she's crying.
"Christina... baby, forget about Caleb and her parents. I will tell them, okay? You just... focus on your family. Okay? Can someone from your firm cover for you tomorrow?"
"No," she says sharply. "No. Tris will want me to be there. Uri..." her voice breaks. "There isn't anything I can do for him now, except make sure he didn't die for nothing."
"You're incredible," Will whispers with a sad smile. "I love you so much."
"I love you too."